Focus Your Vision! was a 12-day youth exchange held in Haarlem, Netherlands, in which seven young people from the Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja Homes participated in. The main themes explored during the youth exchange were upcycling and creativity.
The 32 young people who came together from Malta, Netherlands, Italy and Latvia actively participated in discussing and exploring important issues, collecting upcycling material, building an artistic, upcycled piece, and organising an exposition showcasing their work. Each piece was centred around themes, such as ‘education’, ‘diversity’, ‘democracy’ and ‘culture’ amongst others. The creative minds of the young people who worked on each piece resulted in truly remarkable outcomes!
The young people also explored issues related to social media and bullying using performance theatre. Furthermore, their creative minds were put to work at the beach where they created amazing sand sculptures. In between working creatively, the young people had the opportunity to get to know the city of Haarlem through a scavenger hunt organised by a local youth organisation, and get an introduction to the city of Amsterdam through a photo hunt competition.
There was also the showcasing of aspects related to the culture of the different countries. The Maltese young people organised a Maltese dinner, followed by a night of fun traditional games, as well as mingling with the guests at the exposition and giving them information about our beautiful Maltese islands.
The youth exchange was organised by WOW Go Amsterdam, a Dutch organisation with whom we had already collaborated on two successful projects in the last year and was funded by Erasmus+.
This was the fourth youth exchange in which residents from the Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja Homes participated in – another experience which gave the young people positive memories, the opportunity to push themselves to show their best sides, and the chance to meet other people from different cultures and backgrounds.
